Original subtitles

hey guys these are 10 mixing tips that

changed my life now i know the title of

this video is cheesy but i promise you

these aren't just any old 10 mixing tips

that i threw together to make a video

these 10 tips played a huge role in

helping me develop my professional sound

quit my day job and start my music

production career so if you're looking

to develop a sound so professional that

you can start making money at it you

won't want to miss any of these tips

let's get into it tip number one is to

remove the sub based frequencies in

every instrument besides the kick and

bass even if you don't think there's any

sub bass frequencies in that instrument

low frequency dirt and mud hides in the

most unexpected places and it's exactly

these hidden artifacts that can disturb

and add mud to your sub bass for example

let's take this hi-hat you would never

think to low-cut a hi-hat because it's

such a high frequency instrument but if

we add an eq turn on the analyzer and

play this hi-hat

there's a bunch of stuff here in the low

frequency range if you have too many

instruments adding that much low

frequency dirt to your mix you're going

to lose a lot of headroom and ultimately

your sub bass is going to start to sound

muddy so what i like to do is i like to

add an eq you can use any eq plug-in

that you like turn on a low-cut filter

and just cut out every low-frequency

artifact in between 40 and 80 hertz

because that's where your sub-bass is

the strongest this type of filter will

not take away from the quality of this

hi-hat whatsoever but it'll clear up all

that dirt so that your sub base can

breathe

this next tip by far changed my life the

most and that is that you have to

understand that there is a lot more

people out there that like to sing or

make music than people out there who

actually know how to mix music this

means that there's a huge opportunity

and demand for freelance mixing

engineers to earn some serious side or

full-time income before my success on

youtube and the success of my other

projects like my sound banks and course

platform i used to make around six to

ten thousand dollars a month just mixing

for people as a freelance mixing

engineer and it was this type of money

that allowed me to quit my bs job at an

auto body shop and actually focus on

music full time and trust me when i say

this when you can focus on music full

time that's when you really get good at

it and not only that but most artists

don't care if you don't have any major

credits like you've worked for kanye

west or katy perry or avicii

they just want to know if you know how

to mix a song and that's all the proof

that you need so you really have nothing

to lose i know i didn't have any major

credits when i started my mixing

business back in 2016 and it was because

i made the choice to step out of my

comfort zone and start mixing for people

even though i had no major credits or

anything that i was able to break free

of my old life and start to a music full

time with platforms like sound better

air gigs and fiverr.com selling your

skills as a musician has never been more

accessible so stop waiting around and

get out there and start hustling my next

tip is to use a reference plugin to

compare your mix to a professional mix i

like to use reference to by mastering

the mix there's just no closer way to

reference a professional mix to use a

reference plugin grab a professional

song that's dynamically similar to your

song i'm going to use cheat codes sex

and drag it in to my reference plugin

this song is similar to the song i have

here

my reference song sounds like this

[Music]

now here's the magic of a reference

plugin it automatically gain matches

your song with the reference song so

when we play back our song and we switch

back and forth to the reference song

they play back at the same volume so i

can clearly hear now discrepancies in my

mix versus the reference mix

[Music]

and just from switching back and forth

right there i could hear clearly hear

a couple discrepancies in my mix my base

to lead ratio is off so my base is too

loud and then also my hi-hat

is dismal compared to the hi-hat in this

reference track so first let's bring up

the lead

[Music]

[Applause]

now that the lead's sounding pretty good

i'm gonna bring out my hi-hat listen to

my hi-hat compared to the hi-hat in the

reference song

[Music]

[Applause]

to make it even more clear i'm just

going to solo out the high frequencies

of the reference mix so we can compare

that to the high frequencies of my mix

[Music]

that reference mix is so much more

percussive so i'm gonna go back into my

mix now

and i'm gonna turn up this hi-hat and

possibly even enhance it

let's also boost the hiss on this hi-hat

just a little bit

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

let's unsolo this high band now and

listen to our mix

[Music]

now we could clearly hear that my mix is

pretty similar to that reference mix and

that's why i like a good old reference

plug-in tip number three is to eq your

reverbs reverbs are the widest full

spectrum sound that you'll ever add to

your mix in other words reverb is just a

big sound that takes up a lot of room

and can add a lot of mud to your mix

without you even realizing it it's so

easy to add a reverb plug-in to an

instrument and just move on and forget

about it but you have to eq the reverb

back when i started mixing i used to

just add reverbs to every instrument and

forget about them and i could not figure

out why i couldn't get my songs loud and

the simple answer was there was too much

reverb just going everywhere and taking

up too much headroom watch this if we

take this font clap

sounds like this and we take just the

reverb from it

and we look at the reverb under an

imager and an eq

we can see that the reverb emitted from

this clap

is so wide that it's all over the stereo

image and that's fine that's what reverb

does is it adds width to sounds but also

look at the frequencies that are emitted

from this reverb

it has frequencies all over the eq

spectrum that is a big sound we have to

tame this or else it's going to build up

and ruin your mix every reverb plugin

has an eq module on this plugin this

vintage valhalla verb it's my favorite

reverb plugin what i like to do

is low cut filter

the low frequencies out of the reverb

this isn't going to ruin the quality of

the reverb it's just going to allow the

reverb to fit in the mix and i like to

do it up to 500 hertz also i'll cut out

some of the hiss from the reverb

by pulling the hi-cut eq filter down a

bit

and i adjust that to my liking as well

but rarely will i have reverb that's

wide open that's just going to take up

too much room so if we give ourselves a

good reverb mix on this snare

it still sounds like reverb but now that

reverb will fit in the mix for this next

tip try balancing your mix in mono the

problem with balancing your mix in

stereo is that there is a lot of what i

like to call fake loudness in wide

sounds in other words wide sounds sound

louder than they actually are and that

alone can skew your ability to properly

balance mix here's a melody that we're

gonna play back in mono

sounds nice but if i turn this mono

switch off and we play it back in stereo

[Music]

it sounds so much bigger and more lush

but it's not actually louder it just

seems that way but now what i do to

eliminate the illusion of wide loud

sounds is i will go to the master fader

of my song

i'll grab a plugin that allows me to put

the song in mono and logic we just go to

imaging and then direction mixer spread

it down to mono

and now my entire mix

is in mono and now i can go through and

adjust each instrument

accordingly yeah and that alone was like

a life changer especially with drums

that helps a lot with drums for this

next tip

don't mix your song the same day you

made it your brain and your ears need a

break after the mental strain of writing

music after endless hours of writing

songs in front of your computer your

eyes hurt your ears are strained and

your brain is fried you have to give

yourself a break because it's this type

of exhaustion that will not allow you to

hear the dynamics and frequencies of

your song correctly so you're really not

going to be an effective mixing engineer

so next time you write a song i know

you'll be excited to get that song

finished and get it out as fast as

possible but just give yourself a break

go to sleep wake up the next day and set

up a dedicated mixing session and i

guarantee the results of your mix will

be 10 times more lethal than what they

would have been if you did it a day

earlier on the same day you wrote the

song this next tip is to combine any

layered instrument before starting your

mixing session mixing is a game of

organization the cleaner your doll is on

your eyes the more effectively and

efficiently you'll be able to move

through your mixing process for example

let's take this drum beat i'm going to

show you how i would set this bead up

for a mixing session this beat sounds

like this

if we take a close look at this we can

see that we have three hi-hat layers

that are doing the same thing

this is an easy three layers that i can

narrow down into one single layer

so now what i could do is i could take

these three redundant layers get rid of

them

and we just took three layers and

narrowed it down to one if we look

closer into this mix we can see that our

clap has a layer on it as well

layers are totally fine you just don't

need to keep all your layers in there

and not consolidated so what i'm going

to do is take these claps

right click them bounce

in place

and now we have one stem

instead of two

so that was just two instruments that we

were able to take five whole layers and

narrow them down into two but imagine

doing this for an entire song and

narrowing down all of your layers into

as few layers as possible your project

will end up looking so clean and

minimalistic that you're going to breeze

through that mixing process and mix like

a star this next tip is fire and i make

my most dedicated students do this and

they always love the outcome of it and

that is to mix one of your songs and

then hire a professional mixing engineer

to mix that same song and this will tell

you where your mixing skills are lacking

and exactly where you need to improve on

websites like sound better fiverr or air

gigs for this example we will use sound

better you can go to soundbetter.com

click on this mixing engineers tab and

just find a plethora of professional mix

engineers with some really great credits

that you can hire to mix your song this

dude here is an old man with 150 million

streams he'll probably run your mix

through some nice analog gear so you'll

get to hear what that sounds like we got

some duty mix for ludacris here at bruno

mars mixing engineer here

dimitri vegas and like mike over here

you get the idea hit up a freelancing

website hire a professional engineer to

mix your song there's really no better

way to do it for this next tip if you

really want to develop the skill of

mixing you have to get yourself a pair

of studio monitor headphones or pair of

studio monitors consumer grade

headphones like apple earbuds or dr dre

beats are great headphones for listening

to music on but they are not studio

grade problem with these headphones and

any other consumer grade stereo system

is that they do not deliver a flat true

sound these stereo systems add

processing to music when you listen to

it so that that music sounds good out of

that stereo system the problem with that

is that you're not actually hearing what

that song sounded like when it left the

production studio studio monitors like

my audio technica ath m50xs are the same

price as most consumer-grade headphones

but they are studio grade and deliver a

flat true sound that is completely

unprocessed so i'm able to hear exactly

what's coming out of my doll and it just

makes the whole mixing experience easier

my favorite studio monitors are and have

always been the yamaha hs8s and i

simultaneously switch between them and

my audio technica ath m50x studio

monitor headphones and i couldn't be

happier with this setup here's my final

tip

mix for other people it's the best way

to develop your mixing skill mixing is

very logical so it's much easier to

approach and practice mixing when you're

doing it on a song that's not yours am i

saying don't mix your own music no you

can certainly mix your own music but the

problem with mixing your own music is

that you have too much emotions wrapped

up in the song so you're not going to be

the best decision maker when it comes to

mixing that song and too many emotions

make any logical process more difficult

also i find that when i mix my own songs

i worry about pointless little details

that nobody else is going to ever hear

or worry about and that alone can stifle

the overall result of your mix when you

mix other people's songs you don't hear

those little details so you can focus on

the mix as a whole which is how a mix

should be thought of and that is as a

whole that's the end of the video guys i

hope you enjoyed it unfortunately in

this video i was not able to cover every

square inch of the mixing process i

saved that information from my

production course students so if you

would like to learn how to mix music

like a pro as fast as possible check out

my course at the top of the description

below right now i'm offering a free

consultation over the phone to anyone

who signs up to my music production

course on these phone calls i like to

figure out the best way in order for you

to approach music production so that you

can learn it in the most effective way

possible and then we discuss how to

start building your music production

career if this sounds like something of

interest to you i have a link at the top

of the description below and i'll see

you guys in the next video